A lot of people seem to appreciate Kamen for FRC so I would like to offer my alternative experience: I enjoyed the comradery that came with my high school robotics club, but man I did I absolutely hate the actual competitions. Firstly, being fairly experienced at programming meant that I wasn't doing anything interesting. They tried to make computer vision a focus, but autonomous mode never lasted long enough for it to ever matter in point values. Secondly, it's hardly "competitive". The people that win these competitions are the people from the richest neighborhoods. When I competed in the Bay Area pretty much every regional was won by the cheesy poofs. Why? They literally got NASA Ames to build them their robot. Thirdly, the actual games are incredibly stupid. My first year in highschool the competition was just soccer. It was a simple, well established, competitive game, and the tournaments were fun for it. Every year subsequent had a game way more ridiculous than the last year's.